We had the opportunity to work with Astrum Solar to tell a story about their company and the impact they are having through a news event. Washington D.C. is offering some aggressive tax incentives to commercial builders to install solar panels and utilize other sources of green energy. Astrum Solar helped consult and retrofit an existing apartment building in Washington, D.C. We learned that the recently appointed United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro was going to attend the ribbon cutting and make remarks. We knew that using this news event as a integral part of the narrative arc for this video would lend a greater level of trustworthiness to their mission and product. They were a fantastic client with a sharp team. I’m looking forward to collaborating with them on future stories.

Are you looking for something fun to do with your friends, family, or in-laws? Do you want to make your friends from warmer climates pay for their endless stream of photos on social media that depict their warm winter paradise? Are you a human? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need to visit the National Harbor ICE! 2014 exhibit featuring ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and his buddies. The exhibit is in a giant white dome thingy between The Gaylord and the water at National Harbor.

What you need to know: 1. It is truly 9 degrees Fahrenheit in the air-controlled tent of ice amazingness. Yes, they provide you coats but I would recommend that you wear mittens and a hat. 2. Ice producing companies (these exist?) from around the country have been making the ice for this exhibit for the past year! 3. You can get a little better price via Living Social 4. This exhibit is like a small city inside. It is huge and it will take you around 5-20 minutes to walk through. Longer if you try again and again to breach the sound barrier on the ice slide. 5. While you’re there be sure to check out the awesome Christmas tree on top of the Peeps store along the waterfront (see photo at the end of this post).

What a great project! I really enjoyed capturing 5000 people coming together to be unified and pray for God to use them to live out His love in DC. When I first heard about the upcoming National Prayer gathering, I knew it would be important to tell the story of this big event. McLean Bible Church was one of the 100’s of churches involved but they were also the church that made the biggest push to organize and facilitate the event. I reached out to my contacts there with whom I’ve worked in the past and suggested that they hire me to cover it so they could get the story out to news agencies worldwide and to use the images to get other people and churches involved in future events like this. As a photojournalist I knew I could capture the images that news organizations would publish. I also knew they would trust the authenticity of the images since I hold to the same code of journalism ethics as their organization or agency. I reached out to my contacts at newspapers and wire services and they ran the photos that same day. I’ve really enjoyed working with McLean Bible Church on various projects because they are loving our city in very tangible ways.

I did a recent project with Alliant Studios. First off, I must say that I’m a big fan of Alliant. They are talented, professional, accomplished, and a fun to work with. These are some of the messages we wanted to convey in this visual storytelling project. Their design work helps their clients communicate their vision, brand, and stories through web design, logos, printed collateral, etc. Moreover they do a great job really understanding their clients needs and offering a holistic perspective on design. As a storyteller myself, this project to collaborate with them on the visual stories on their new site.

We decided all of the staff portraits should be unique to fit each person. We wanted the photos of the office environment to match who they are and what they are all about. We wanted to capture the collaborative nature of their team and their personality (see Pez dispenser collection and foosball table action.) We also wanted to leverage the power of personal stories of how their clients have benefited from Alliant and why they keep on using them. I don’t know if we ever considered photos of their clients with stories because they knew from the get-go that they wanted to harness my style of producing video stories. We talked about some of the goals of the video and the messages they wanted to communicate about who they are. I went back to my office and produced a storyboard and worked with them on who of their clients might be the best to communicate each message. I’m really pleased with the outcome and it has been a valuable asset for Alliant to communicate to their future clients. I’m seeing more and more of my clients jump on this style of video storytelling with great success.

This summer, I’ve been working on a series of personal stories for a commercial client. I thought I’d post a behind the scenes photo from one of the recent interviews. The client wanted a higher production value so I have been using Canon’s C300 for this project. I’ll be sure to post the final cuts of this project when it goes live.

Utilizing the Canon C300 and some lighting modifiers for an interview.

I moved last year and it has made my Spring & Summer exciting. Here’s why. The people who we bought the home from had a green thumb and a gift for landscaping. Every week it seems like we are discovering new types of plants and flowers as they return after our historically cold winter. Here is one one of my favorites, the Daylily.

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About Garrett

Garrett Hubbard is a visual storyteller. He utilizes both video & still photography to connect his clients with their audience. He has spent the past four years with USA TODAY—taking him to the White House, the Olympics, The Royal Wedding, and many other places around the world.

Garrett is thankful for the trust he receives from those who invite him to tell their stories and is grateful for mentors and friends who have invested in his life story.